


Day 17: Pie can Wait

by ofplanet_earth



Series: 30 days of Barduil [17]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pushing Daisies Fusion, Angst, Asexual Character, Bard Dies, Bard is alive, Fluff and Angst, I can't stress that enough, M/M, Pie Maker Thranduil, The Pie Hole, Thranduil has the magic touch, Thranduil with a man bun, Waiter Bard, poor thranduil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 04:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5233244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofplanet_earth/pseuds/ofplanet_earth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pie didn’t tell his secrets. Pie didn’t care that the strawberries baked inside its crispy crust had been dead and rotten before Thranduil touched them, didn’t judge him for hiding in the kitchen and watching other people enjoy themselves. Pie didn’t nudge him with its elbow and urge him to go <i>socialize</i>. Thranduil didn’t have to worry about pie finding out the way he felt about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day 17: Pie can Wait

**Author's Note:**

> [thelonelymagpie](http://thelonelymagpie.tumblr.com) requested a Pushing Daisies AU!   
>  sorry it's a bit of a downer. I had all the cute feels in my head and then... well... it's Pushing Daisies, after all.

Some things in life were simple. Like Pie. Just a crust and a filling and maybe some ice cream on the side. But even a pie wasn’t just a pie. It was sugar and salt and fruits and reductions and a thousand different chemical reactions all coming together to make the perfect bite. 

Thranduil loved pie. He loved the smell and the taste and the process of it. He loved putting his whole focus into just one thing until it was finished. Until it was perfect. Pie made people happy. He liked to watch from the kitchen as his customers were served their apple or chocolate creme or raspberry tart. He loved to watch them take that first bite, loved to watch their eyes close in a moment of pure happiness and know that he was the one who’d made it. That’s what pie was. Pie was happiness baked into a crust and served hot on a dessert plate.

Pie was home.

Pie didn’t tell his secrets. Pie didn’t care that the strawberries baked inside its crispy crust had been dead and rotten before Thranduil touched them, didn’t judge him for hiding in the kitchen and watching other people enjoy themselves. Pie didn’t nudge him with its elbow and urge him to go _socialize_. Thranduil didn’t have to worry about pie finding out the way he felt about it. 

Pie already knew. 

But Bard— Bard didn’t know. Sometimes he’d wonder if his smiles lingered maybe a little too long, or if his eyes were really that bright all the time, or only when he looked at him. Sometimes, when Thranduil finally looked up from the counter to put a pie in the oven, he’d find Bard leaning against the arch of the kitchen and wonder if he’d been staring. 

But that was just wishful thinking. 

Bard flirted. Bard flirted with nearly everyone, men and women alike. He flirted with Thranduil, too, but it was… different. He’d wink at him when pointing out the lonely girl sitting in the corner booth with only her book for company, or the cute guy who came to sit at the bar every Tuesday afternoon. He liked to say the most ridiculous things, share the most absurd facts about history or weather patterns or the origin of the phrase _pie hole_ (as in shut your). He liked to tell Thranduil his hair looked nice on days when he’d woken up late and had to tie it into a bun. 

Like today. 

Today Thranduil had slept through his 5:30 AM alarm. He only woke up when Feren called, impatient and still waiting in the alley behind the Pie Hole with his weekly delivery. Today Thranduil had to leave yesterday’s pies out on the display because he didn’t have the time to make fresh ones. Today he felt like a thunderstorm had sprouted above his head. 

And then Bard unlocked the door of the diner and the sun poured in behind him. 

He helped Thranduil put away the sacs of flour and sugar and the cartons of eggs. He leaned against the wall of the kitchen and he told Thranduil his hair looked nice. Thranduil couldn’t help the blush that crept over his face. “I didn’t have time to shower,” he mumbled. 

“Maybe you should not shower more often.” Bard winked as he pushed away from the wall and went to brew coffee. 

“Bard?” Thranduil called after him. Maybe it was the terrible morning he’d had— the feeling that nothing else could go wrong today that made him bold. He put down his rolling pin and left the pastry dough on the counter and followed Bard out into the diner. “Why do you do that?” 

“Do what?” Bard looked up, seeming surprised to see Thranduil standing beyond the boundaries of the kitchen. 

“ _That_ ,” Thranduil motioned to Bard, as though it ought to be explanation enough. “Why do you say that my hair looks nice when really it’s just unwashed? Or wink when there’s nothing really to wink about? Or…” _or flirt, or lean against the wall and watch me make pies, or smile so wide it looks like you’ve got galaxies in your eyes_ Thranduil sighed. “Or help me unpack the deliveries in the morning.”

Bard shrugged. “Because I like you.” He was staring at him— staring straight at him like he could see straight through his skin, exposing all the terrible secrets hiding beneath it. Thranduil shifted on his feet, stuffed his hands in the pockets of his apron and wished he had a superpower that was good for more than just making pies and causing heartache. 

Like becoming invisible at will. 

“What does that even mean?” He knew he was pushing it— this unspoken truce they had between them— the one where Bard said crazy things and Thranduil only smiled and stayed in the safety of his kitchen. The one where they remained unlikely friends. Friendship wasn’t one of those things you questioned— gift horses and mouths and… other things like that.

Thranduil was pulled from his thoughts when Bard’s shoes appeared in front of his own sneakers. He looked up, took a breath in to say _forget about it_ and _I’m sorry_ , but Bard’s face was closer than he expected and instead, what came out of his mouth was, “You’re doing it again.” His voice caught on a scratch in his throat, one that definitely wasn't there before Bard came so close. 

“Doing what?” Bard asked, his voice pitched low and a smirk hanging on the corner of his lips. 

“That… that thing you do with your eyes.” 

“My eyes?” 

“Yeah. Your eyes. When you look at me the way you’re looking now.” 

“Do you want me to stop?” His eyes changed then, a flash of worry clouding the stars Thranduil thought he could see there. He shook his head and opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say was lost when Bard kissed him. 

Thranduil’s hands were still stuck in his apron and his shoulders were wound tight but his heart was singing and his brain was stuttering, still stuck on how _soft_ Bard’s lips were. Stuck on how he could feel the heat of them all the way down his sternum, caught on how Bard’s stubbled beard scratched his chin and how his gentle breath tickled his cheek. 

Bard's hands were delicate at his jaw and the exposed skin at the base of his neck. Thranduil had never really been kissed before— not like this. And suddenly it all made sense— the flirting, the long looks and the bright eyes. Thranduil thought he might have heard a whimper but he couldn't be sure it hadn't come from his own throat. 

“You like me,” Thranduil mumbled dumbly. 

“Yeah,” Bard laughed, his teeth catching the light coming through the windows. “Is that alright?” 

“I think so,” he said, and this had Bard laughing. 

“Go finish your pie, Pie Maker.” He ghosted his thumbs along Thranduil’s cheeks and caught his fingers on stray blond hairs.

“Pie can wait,” he sighed. 

“Only if you want to lose all your paying customers!” Bard nudged him in the direction of the kitchen. “Go on, it always helps you think, anyway.” 

Thranduil wondered how Bard could know that, how he seemed to know so much about him when Thranduil knew almost nothing about him. He knew that he was kind and humorous, that his kisses made Thranduil’s chest grow warm and that he _liked him_. He walked toward the kitchen anyway, a small twinge of regret budding in the cold Bard’s closeness had left behind. 

That’s when he heard it. A terrible metallic groan and an awful shriek. Then the crash of breaking glass and the crunch of metal landing hard on the tile floor. From his place by the archway, Thranduil could see one of the cherry lights by the bar had fallen. The ceiling was in shreds from where the wiring had pulled loose. 

“Bard?” He turned back through the arch and crossed into the diner and saw the enormous metal cherry, bent and shattered and still sparking on the floor. It took a moment for him to understand what he saw next. Bard had asked him if it was alright that he liked him. He knew the answer now— it was more than alright— because there was Bard, lying on the floor beside the damned cherry— the one Thranduil had insisted would add to the pie effect and definitely wouldn’t be too cheesy or _too much_. Bard was on the floor with the cherry by his head and— oh god, was that blood? 

Bard was lying on the floor next to the cherry and he was bleeding bright red blood and all Thranduil wanted was to tell him it was okay— that it was the most okay thing in the world because Thranduil liked him, too. He dove to the floor and shook Bard’s shoulder. He was unconscious. There was a pool of blood around his head and he was unconscious and Thranduil would have given anything to just go back thirty seconds and tell him that it was alright— that he liked Bard too and _it was alright_.

He managed to tug hard enough at his shirt to get Bard over onto his back. His hair was soaked with red and it clung to his face. “Bard? Bard!” He reached out to hold his cheek and rouse him, reached out to comfort him the way Bard had done for him. But he recoiled the moment his finger touched Bard’s skin. 

No. 

No, no, no. This wasn’t possible. Bard sat up, cringing and holding his head but no longer unconscious. “No.” Thranduil stumbled back until he reached the underside of the bar, looking on in horror at the man he’d just brought back from the dead. 

“What’s the matter?” Bard asked. “Oh god, what happened?” He held out his hand, now covered in blood from his sticky hair. “Thran?” 

Thranduil had never cared for the nickname, but Bard was going to hate him in a moment and so he soaked up the sound of his name in Bard’s voice while he still could. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

“Don’t be sorry, just help me up.” 

Thranduil shied away as Bard held his hand out to him. The look on his face had guilt and nausea churning hot and sharp in Thranduil’s gut. “I can’t.”

❦

“So I was dead.” Thranduil nodded. “And you brought me back to life.” Another nod. “How?” Bard pressed a napkin to his head as he sat on the counter in the kitchen. The cherry light and the blood were still behind the bar, the front door had been locked and Thranduil was pacing in front of the oven.

It had taken fifteen alive- again- dead- again strawberries before Bard began to believe him, but the questions were never ending. “I don’t know. It’s something I just… found out one day. It didn’t exactly come with a Creepy Superpowers Handbook.” 

“But there are rules?” Thranduil nodded and began to chew at the inside of its thumb. “Do I want to know how you figured them out?” 

“Trial and error, mostly.” 

“Mostly?”

“And some experimentation.” 

“Experimentation?”

“Fireflies and science lab frogs,” Thranduil waved off Bard’s scandalized expression. “Basically: I touch a dead thing once and it’s alive again. Touch an alive- again thing and it’s dead again forever.” 

“So we can’t touch.” 

“I’m sorry,” Thranduil stopped his pacing and ran his hands through the disarrayed knot his hair had become. “I didn’t think— I thought you were only unconscious and I didn’t mean to— I didn’t mean for—“ 

“If you’d known,” Bard dropped his hands and clasped them between his knees, levelling Thranduil with a serious look that had thorns and thistles growing in his throat. “If you’d had time to think about it, would I still be here right now?” 

Of course Bard would still be there. Of course Thranduil would have touched him. Even now, he was prepared to give up anything it if meant being able to see Bard’s eyes light up when he smiled at him. He would have done anything if it meant he didn’t have to say goodbye. But how could he confess all that now? Now that he’d ruined any chance they had at being happy, now that he’d never be able to kiss him again. His voice was a broken, wavering scratch of breath in his lungs when he said, “Yes.” 

“Alright then.” 

“You’re not angry?” 

“How can I be angry?” Bard laughed. He had the gaul to laugh at a time like this, but somehow the sound only made Thranduil’s heart race. “I’m alive,” he shrugged. “I’m not dead. I can still see you, can still talk to you.” 

“You still want to stay?” 

“Of course I still want to stay!” Bard’s smile was wide and impossible and Thranduil couldn’t help the tears that rose in his eyes. “Hey, hey hey.” Bard slid from the counter and Thranduil took an instinctive step back. “How close can we get? What are the rules about that?” 

“We can’t touch.” 

“That’s the only rule?” Thranduil nodded. “Alright then. Stay very still.” 

Thranduil put his hands in his pockets and sniffed, drawing his shoulders close and trying to make himself small. Bard pulled a fresh napkin from the counter, folded it deliberately and dabbed the corner of Thranduil’s eyes. “That’s the most corny thing I’ve ever seen.” He laughed through the tears. 

“I know.” Bard smiled again. “But look. Not touching. If that’s the only rule we have, we can make it work.” 

“Yeah? You don’t feel like you’re wasting your time? You’re not afraid of me or… or disgusted? You don’t hate me?” 

“Thranduil. Nothing could be further from the truth.” Bard smiled as Thranduil met his gaze. This close up, he could see there weren’t galaxies in Bard’s eyes at all; what he’d thought were stars was only a reflection of what Bard saw when he looked at him.

**Author's Note:**

> I like to tag [inspiration](http://www.ofplanet-earth.tumblr.com/tagged/30-days-of-barduil).  
> you can keep track of my word count on my [novel page](http://nanowrimo.org/participants/ofplanet-earth/novels/30-days-of-barduil) or on my [tumblr](http://www.ofplanet-earth.tumblr.com/tagged/nanowrimo).
> 
> feel free to use lots of caps in the comments. I'm ready, I can take it.


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